A long labor. Lauren Duggar (née Swanson) was in “a lot of pain” ahead of her and Josiah Duggar’s daughter Bella’s arrival.
“I was, like, so exhausted,” the Counting On star, 21, says in Us Weekly’s exclusive sneak peek of the Tuesday, August 11, episode. “They would tell me, ‘Lay on your side another couple hours,’ and I’m thinking, ‘It’s been already a couple hours. Shouldn’t I have the baby by now? I’ve been eight centimeters for, like, 12 hours already.’”
Two hours after her first epidural, Lauren was given a second one “since [her] pain was still very high.”
The reality star explains in a confessional: “After the second epidural, I didn’t feel any different. I still was in a lot of pain, even more than before. … The back pain [was] really bad, [I’d] been awake for almost two days now, so they gave me a drug to make me just sleep.”
Lauren’s mother-in-law, Michelle Duggar, understood the then-pregnant star’s frustrations, saying she had gone through the same back pain “a few times” during labor. “I know that is really uncomfortable,” she says in the clip.
As for Josiah, 23, the 19 Kids and Counting alum notes that the experience was “frustrating” for him as well.
The couple welcomed their baby girl in November 2019, exclusively telling Us in a statement at the time: “After a long and difficult labor, our girl arrived. When we finally got to see and hold our precious Bella Milagro all the pain instantly went away. We can’t believe she is ours — she is so perfect! She definitely has lived up to her name which means, ‘beautiful miracle.’ Today we are basking in God’s goodness!”
The infant arrived six months after the TLC personalities announced that they were expecting a baby after previously suffering a miscarriage.
Lauren, who wed Josiah in June 2018 in Arkansas, gushed about his parenting skills via Instagram seven months after Bella’s arrival. “You’re such an wonderful and loving father!” she captioned a June social media upload. “Bella can only babble a few words, and I think it’s the sweetest thing that she just started saying ‘Da-Da’ just in time for Father’s Day.”
Counting On airs on TLC Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
